Return to Mosul a distant dream for many displaced

Displaced Iraqi children gather behind a fence at the Hasan Sham camp for internally displaced people east of Mosul, Iraq on June 10, 2017

Yassin Najem knows he has to start again from scratch. His home in Mosul has been bombed, and for him and thousands more displaced Iraqis, returning remains a distant dream.

On Monday, the Iraqi authorities announced victory over the jihadists of the Islamic State group.

But the unprecedented destruction in the country's second city and the unstable security situation will delay the return home of hundreds of thousands of people who fled.

"My house has been reduced to dust, and half of the neighbourhood has been destroyed," Najem told AFP at a camp for the displaced.

A displaced Iraqi woman wipes away tears at the Hasan Sham camp for internally displaced people east of Mosul on June 10, 2017

"If I return home, it will be to live on the street," said the 50-year-old who has been with his three children in the camp east of Mosul for nine months.

Half asleep as he sheltered under canvas, the widowed former electrical repairman tried to fight the overpowering heat.

The tented alleyways of Camp Hasan Sham were deserted apart from a few children in dusty pyjamas who ventured outside as their parents dozed under canvas or plastic sheeting.

Men who did go outside wrapped their heads in wet towelling.

- 'Nothing to go back to' -

Since the Iraqi security forces' offensive on Mosul began in October, more than a million civilians have fled the violence and more than 825,000 have yet to return, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The unprecedented destruction in Mosul and the unstable security situation will delay the return home of hundreds of thousands of people who fled

But as some semblance of calm accompanies the end of major combat in western districts of the city, some people are trying to go home.

UN refugee agency UNHCR has warned that many of the displaced will remain so for months, however.

Melany Markham, a spokeswoman in Iraq for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said that while people who fled Mosul may not want to stay in the camps any longer, "they have nothing to go back to".

"There is no water supply, there is no power supply, there is no food, there are no schools, there are no hospitals, and from the images and what they tell us their homes have been razed to the ground," she said.

Sitting cross-legged under a tarpaulin at the entrance to her tent, Safaa Saadallah was sceptical to hear her 26-year-old son, a former professional handball player, talk of returning home to Mosul.